AN alumnus from the School of Medical Technology of Centro Escolar University was one of the researchers behind the study on the early response to coronavirus disease through swab test.

Entitled ‘Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgM improves clinical sensitivity early in disease discourse’, the study was conducted by Anselmo Fabros along with his co-researchers.

According to the study, specimens from 175 PCR-positive patients and 107 control specimens were analyzed using Abbott IgM and IgG, DiaSorin IgG, and Roche Total assays.

Assay is an investigative procedure in laboratory medicine.

“The host immune system reacts to the infection by SARS-CoV-2 by producing specific antibodies. IgM and IgG are the key elements of the immune system that provide early response to infection (IgM) and long-lasting protective immunity (IgG),” Fabros said.

“As IgM is a marker of acute infection, it may be a useful tool to combine it with PCR (swab test) to improve sensitivity and specificity early in the disease course. Sensitivity, specificity, cross-reactivity, concordance between assays, trends over time, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were determined,” he added.

Fabros, a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology in 1997, is presently a Charge-Medical Laboratory Technologist at Biochemistry and Immunology at Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The full text of the study can be accessed on the National Library of Medicine website through the link https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33476578/.